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Crito
For the generality of men will not be persuaded that you were unwilling to depart hence, when we urged you to it. Note: 44c Would, O Crito that the multitude could effect the greatest evils, that they might also effect the greatest good, for then it would be well. But now they can do neither; for they can make a man neither wise nor foolish; but they do whatever chances. Note: 44d For in many places, and wherever you go, men will love you; and if you are disposed to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will esteem you very highly, and will insure your safety, so that no one in Thessaly will molest you. Note: 45c betray your own sons, whom, when it is in your power to rear and educate them, you will abandon, Note: 45d And the reasons which I formerly professed I can not now reject, because this misfortune has befallen me; but they appear to me in much the same light, and I respect and honor them as before; so that if we are unable to adduce any better at the present time, be assured that I shall not give in to you, Note: 46c whether on former occasions it was rightly resolved or not, that we ought to pay attention to some opinions, and to others not; or whether, before it was necessary that I should die, it was rightly resolved; but now it has become clear that it was said idly for argument's sake, though in reality it was merely jest and trifling. Note: 46d Consider, then; does it not appear to you to have been rightly settled that we ought not to respect all the opinions of men, but some we should, and others not? Note: 47b Therefore we should respect the good, but not the bad? Note: 47b And are not the good those of the wise, and the bad those of the foolish? Note: 47b Can we, then, enjoy life with a diseased and impaired body? Note: 47e So that at first you did not set out with a right principle, when you laid it down that we ought to regard the opinion of the multitude with respect to things just and honorable and good, and their contraries. Note: 48b we are not to be anxious about living but about living well. Note: 48b to live well and Honorable and justly are the same thing? Note: 48b if not, cease, my excellent friend, to urge upon me the same thing so often, that I ought to depart hence against the will of the Athenians. Note: 48e injustice on every account both evil and disgraceful to him who commits it? Note: 49b Neither ought one who is injured to return the injury, as the multitude think, since it is on no account right to act unjustly. Note: 49b By departing hence without the leave of the city, are we not doing evil to some, and that to those to whom we ought least of all to do it, or not? Note: 50b Or do you think it possible for that city any longer to subsist, and not be subverted, in which judgments that are passed have no force, but are set aside and destroyed by private Note: 50b persons?"—what Note: 50b but that to offer violence either to one's mother or father is not holy, much less to one's country? Note: 51c For we, having given you birth, nurtured, instructed you, and having imparted to you and all other citizens all the good in our power, still proclaim, by giving the power to every Athenian who pleases, when he has arrived at years of discretion, and become acquainted with the business of the state, and us, the laws, that any one who is not satisfied with us may take his property, and go wherever he pleases. Note: 51d But whoever continues with us after he has seen the manner in which we administer justice, and in other respects govern the city, we now say that he has in fact entered into a compact with us to do what we order; Note: 51e you never went out of the city to any of the public spectacles, Note: 52c it was in your power to have imposed on yourself a sentence of exile, Note: 52c during the space of seventy years, in which you might have departed if you had been dissatisfied with us, and the compacts had not appeared to you to be just? You, however, preferred neither Lacedæmon nor Crete, which you several times said are governed by good laws, Note: 52e if you should go to one of the neighboring cities, either Thebes or Megara, for both are governed by good laws, you will go there, Socrates, as an enemy to their polity; and such as have any regard for their country will look upon you with suspicion, regarding you as a corrupter of the laws; Note: 53b virtue and justice, legal institutions and laws, should be most highly valued by men? And do you not think that this conduct of Socrates would be very indecorous? Note: 53d though an old man, with but a short time to live, in all probability, have dared to have such a base desire of life as to violate the most sacred laws? Note: 53e Whether, if you go to Thessaly, will they take care of them, but if you go to Hades will they not take care of them? If, however, any advantage is to be derived from those that say they are your friends, we must think they will." Note: 54b